


Memories Fire

by Leela



Series: Touch My Skin [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hand Jobs, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-02
Updated: 2011-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-24 06:18:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leela/pseuds/Leela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alastor Moody does not believe that Severus Snape is dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [r_grayjoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_grayjoy/gifts).



> **Beta** : eeyore9990
> 
>  **A/N** : This is the (long overdue) story that r_grayjoy requested when she won my Purple Dove auction. I hope it was worth the wait. ♥
> 
> This story is a sequel to [Touch My Skin to Keep Me Whole](http://archiveofourown.org/works/160326). The title, as with the first story, is from the lyrics to ['Mojo Pin'](http://www.jeffbuckley.com/rfuller/buckley/words/gracelyrics/index.html), by Jeff Buckley and Gary Lucas (from Jeff Buckley's Grace album).

"Dead?" I adjust my eye patch and fix my remaining eye on Kingsley Shacklebolt, who doesn't have enough decency to flinch. "Severus Snape is as dead as I am."

"We do have Snape's body, Moody," John Dawlish says. He's too gormless to do anything but jut his chin out and cross his arms protectively over his chest when I glare at him. Deputy Head Auror, too, poor bastard. He's clearly been promoted far beyond the level of his own competence just so they could get him out of the field.

"Oh you do, do you?" I have to resist the urge to adjust the fucking eye patch again. It doesn't belong in this office, with the Aurors. It belongs in a private room with Severus, who's never hesitated to tell me in excruciating detail how much he hated my magical eye.

Dawlish makes a snarling noise, and Kingsley asks, "Do you think us that incompetent? The body was positively identified as Severus Tobias Snape."

"Load of fucking morons. I'm surprised you can wipe your own arses." Honestly, with the bloody piss-poor job the Aurors have been doing the past few weeks, the idiots probably used standard forensic charms.

"You... you... judgmental _berk_." Dawlish is all but sputtering in his haste to insult.

"Berk?" I bark out a laugh. "If that's an example of your best--"

"Alastor," Kingsley says, cutting me off and smiling as he does it. "If you think there's a chance Severus is still alive, feel free to cast your own charms."

"But he's--"

"John, please." Kingsley suddenly looks exhausted and grey enough around the gills for me to feel a grudging bit of sympathy for him.

"Where'd you put him?"

"In a grave. After giving him a proper funeral, of course," Dawlish says. "We're not barbarians."

I'd have rolled my eyes, but that won't be any fun until I've found someone to make me another magical one. Instead, I lower my voice to a growl and say, "Take me to it."

Neither of them have enough sense to shift their arses. Dawlish tries for intimidating, but only manages to appear Confunded. Then again, that's nothing new.

Kingsley directs one of his considering looks at me. His mouth purses in the way it always does when that Ravenclaw brain of his clicks into gear. Tell-tales like that are the reason Shacklebolt was always shite undercover. Even Polyjuiced, they gave him away in an instant. Still, the Aurors have hired far worse over the years.

"Leave us." Kingsley's words are as abrupt as the gesture he aims at Dawlish.

"I don't think--"

A derisive snort escapes me.

"It'll be fine, John."

Gawping like a Plimpy with its legs in a knot, Dawlish glances between us several times and makes a humphing noise.

"Dawdling again?"

Dawlish's face reddens at my gibe, and for a minute, I think he's finally going to take a swing at me. But then Kingsley clears his throat pointedly, and the stuffing seems to ooze out of Dawlish. He slumps out of the office, and it's as clear as the Mediterranean on a summer day that the war broke John Dawlish along with his illusions.

Pity that, really. Useless oik he might be, but he was always amusing when poked in just the right way.

"If you start treating him differently, he'll never recover." Kingsley is leaning back comfortably in his chair, elbows on the arms and fingers steepled beneath his chin.

"All those months of being Confunded?" I tap the base of my wooden leg on the floor." He's got permanent brain damage, and you know it."

I can see the words on the tip of Kingsley's tongue, in the effort he puts into not mentioning my missing eye and leg, and I decide to make it easy on him. "Where's Severus?"

There's a brief pause as Kingsley's brain switches to another track, and I half expect him to deny what we both know is the truth. But then he exhales, and my stomach tightens in anticipation of seeing Severus for the first time in far too many months to count.

.:.

Kingsley takes me to an estate in Suffolk filled with the kinds of houses that I can't imagine Severus Snape ever owning. They're all soul-less Muggle structures, and none of them have so much as the _Fuck you, I'm still standing_ attitude of Spinner's End going for them.

"How much does he hate you for this?" I ask Kingsley as we walk across the road towards it.

"Severus hasn't said anything yet."

Five bloody words, and they have me stopping dead in my tracks and tightening my grip on my staff to avoid wobbling over on this damned leg. Not to mention having to fight the urge to hex Kingsley. "You could have called me in from the field earlier."

Turning back, Kingsley shakes his head. "It wouldn't have made the least bit of difference to Severus, and I needed you out there."

"That's a load of fucking Thestral shite, Kingsley, and you know it." I stomp over and get right up into his face. He takes a step backwards, and it's tempting to just ruddy well snarl at him. "No one, no matter what their position at the Ministry or how long I've known them, gets to make any decisions about me and mine without consulting me."

He stares at me for several very long seconds before giving me a slow nod.

"Now," I say, "is there anything else I should know before we go on inside?"

Kingsley does that mouth-pursing thing again. Bastard almost looks as if he's going to ignore my question, and then he nods again. "He's eating, reading, and walking, but he hasn't said a word since we brought him out of the healing coma. Poppy believes that he can, based on the results of her tests, but—" he sighs "—she thinks he may have some memory loss. However, we cannot know for sure unless and until he starts talking or communicating in some way."

After a quick examination, checking on the positioning of Kingsley's fingers and the fluttering pulse at the base of his throat, it's clear that he's telling most of the truth as he knows it. "I'll see what I can do."

Then I start walking again, because there's only one person in this world I trust enough to share anything personal, and he's in the magic-forsaken house up ahead.

.:.

Once through the front door, I don't so much as pause when Poppy starts in on her usual lecture. She huffs, but isn't upset enough for me to need to say anything.

"Just don't push him too hard," she calls out when I'm almost at the door she'd indicated. "I'd like to take a holiday soon, without having to worry about patching either of you back together."

"Now where's the fun in that?" I ask her.

Poppy huffs again, but the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth is enough to reassure me that she's not too worried about Severus.

After she and Kingsley disappear down the hallway, I reach for the doorknob. It turns before I get my hand on it, and Harry Potter steps out. He gives me the kind of scowl that tells me he's been hanging around Severus Snape too long, picking up back habits. The expression sits oddly on Potter's face, as if he's still got some growing into it to do. I give the boy credit for trying, mind you.

He closes the door behind him and leans against flowered wallpaper that's bright enough to endanger my remaining eyesight. Potter chews on his bottom lip — a bad habit that'll keep him out of the Aurors, if I have anything to say about it — then releases it and says, "Voldemort better stay dead. That's all I'm saying. Because if someone tells me he survived too, I'm leaving the country."

A snort of laughter bursts out of me, and I pat him on the shoulder. "You'll do, lad," I tell him. "You'll do."

"I'd better, hadn't I?" Potter seems as if he's about to say something else, but then there's a thump from behind the closed door. He pushes himself off the wall and gives me a smirk that tells me exactly who he's been hanging around with as easily as the sliver of green-tattooed hip that's revealed by his low-slung jeans when he moves. "Better get in there," he says. "Snape's been told you're coming, and he's not exactly known for his patience."

I give him a sharp look. "And you think my name's going to mean something him, do you?"

"You'll have to find out for yourself, won't you? I've got someone waiting for me as well." Potter takes my free hand in an awkward grip and gives it a squeeze that says everything he doesn't and then he's off out the front door. The boy's growing into his own man and not a minute too soon either. I can't help hoping that the wizarding world isn't ready for him, because I'll need some amusement in my retirement.

.:.

The room behind the door is a library. Severus is sitting on a small sofa, reading a book. He's wearing black trousers and a loose, collarless white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. With his feet bare and his hair tied back at the nape of his neck, he seems far more relaxed than I remember. Then again, when it comes to Severus Snape, appearances are frequently deceiving.

With that in mind, I cast my usual run of privacy and locking charms, and then I drop down into the seat next to him. The fact that the sofa is so small that our legs touch sends a shock through me, and I wonder whether he truly remembers or if this is merely another of his ruddy tests.

"You just had to do that," he says, not bothering to lift his head or look at me. His voice is unfamiliar, rasping and raw — a clear reminder of how much we've both been changed by the wars we've fought and won.

Severus hasn't got it quite right, but I still say, "What? Sit down?"

Instead of ignoring me, he reaches out, letting his hand fall onto my thigh and scraping the nail of his finger over the seam of my trousers. The action sends a hum of memory through me, and my hand twitches enough that I have to put my staff down so that I don't drop it.

Slouching down, I rest my head against the back of the sofa and stretch out my legs. "Bastard," I say with as much pleasantness as I can muster.

He raises his head and scowls at me, and damn if he doesn't impress and turn me on all over again.

"You'll have to tell them," I say. "Sooner rather than later if you value your hide."

"I refuse to pander to dunderheads." He closes his book and puts it on a side table. "Even Potter was able to work it out. There's no excuse for either of them."

"Constant vigilance," I say, and he nods gravely.

"Precisely." He turns towards me. It's clear from the tension thrumming through him, and the downturn of his lips that he will never reveal the true extent of his memory loss. Not even to me.

There's only one answer to that, so I nudge his thigh with my own in a gesture of acceptance. Acceptance of him and of the fact that I'll never demand an answer he's not willing to give.

"Is that an offer or are you just taking the piss?"

My breath escapes in a hiss, and my prick reminds me of exactly what it is about Severus Snape that makes me want him. I shift so that I'm facing him and reach out to run my hands down his arms, as gently as I can manage because he's still as skittish as a feral colt. Circling his wrists with my forefingers and thumbs and drawing his hands towards me, I look directly into his eyes and say, "I still don't take the piss over anything that matters."

He sags into me, and I have to release his wrists to catch him. His head is bent and his cheek resting against my chest, exposing his neck to me. The pale skin is marred with scars, and I'm even more drawn to it. I bite down on one of his prominent vertebrae and then lick my mark. He still tastes of butterscotch and almonds, still has that undercurrent of Dark that he's brought me to crave like air and magic.

Relief sends fire racing from my tongue to my balls, and something in me unclenches. That something was hope, I realise belatedly, and have to suppress a snort of laughter. Severus tends to take derision personally, and that's not the wick I want to be lighting under him right now.

With that in mind, I say, "No charity."

He raises his head and smirks at me. "Not unwilling either," he says, and then he reaches up, tucks a few strands of my hair behind my right ear, and traces his fingertips over the new, barely visible scar just above that ear.

Shifting until he's straddling my legs, Severus uses both hands to map the web of scarring on my face. I spare a thought for the others that are hidden under my clothes but shove it aside. Severus stayed with me when I lost the leg and the eye, even through the bloody Barty Crouch debacle — just the thought of how I made that bastard pay for touching my Severus brings a savage grin to my face and steals away every ounce of my patience with Severus's explorations.

I turn my head and nip at his Dark Mark, revelling in the way it makes my lips and teeth tingle. He hisses at the sensation, his blunt nails dig into the skin of my face, and his prick hardens against mine. And I fucking want him. Now. Here in this room on this sofa that's barely big enough to hold us.

Severus pulls away at that moment. His eyes are alight with a challenge that I've missed as much as I'd miss breathing.

"Push back," I tell him," and get those trousers undone."

"Yours too," he says, and his fingers are steady and sure on my belt and buttons.

After a bit of awkward shuffling, especially when my fucking leg slides on the damn rug, both of our pricks are exposed. Then Severus leans forward, and he holds his hand in front of my face. I lick a wet stripe down the centre and take his hand down and wrap it around our pricks.

It's rough and not quite wet enough, and our hands drag on the skin almost painfully, but it's Severus fucking Snape, and we're both alive.

"Faster," I mutter in his ear, using my free arm to hold him tight and close, as he tugs, and twists, and clutches at my shirt to keep his balance.

He huffs into my ear, blowing prickles down my spine, but his fingers twine harder with mine and he speeds up. Needing more, knowing he needs more, I grab his shoulder for leverage, flatten my foot on the floor, and shove up into his hand. He thrusts in counterpoint.

Again and again, faster and fucking faster, until his prick is swelling, and my balls are tightening, and I'm about drowning in the need to own and be owned by him. Until I can feel our pricks pulse, and we're coming together, on our hands and skin and clothes.

Breath heaving in and out of my lungs as if I've chased a fugitive to ground, I grab his left arm, bite down on the Dark Mark, suck on the skin between my teeth, and he groans. It's a harsh sound, all consonants and no vowels, and I know beyond question that he would have retreated into amnesia and a life begun anew if this fucking nasty glorious thing between us hadn't still been here.

~fin~


End file.
